It is imperative to explore practical methods and materials to drive the development of high energy density lithium metal batteries. The constuciton of nanostructure electrodes and surface engineering on the current collectors are the two most effective strategies to regulate the homogeneous Li plating/stripping to relieve the Li dendrites and infinite volume change problems. Based on the low stacking fault energy of the Cu−Zn alloy, we present a novel chemical energy release induced surface atom diffusion strategy, which is achieved by the negative Gibbs free energy from the surface oxidation reaction and subsequent replacement reaction under thermal treatment in air, to realize a uniform upper ZnO nanoparticles coating. Furthermore, we apply the modified brass mesh as a lithiophilic current collector to decrease the Li deposition nucleation overpotential and effectively restrain the Li dendrite growth. The modified brass current collector achieves a long-term cycling stability of 500 cycles at 2.0 mA cm −2 . We have verified the effectiveness of our chemical energy release modification strategy on a 1 m 2 brass mesh and other Cu alloy (Tin bronze mesh), which demonstrates its great opportunities for scalable and safe lithium metal batteries.

Herein we fabricated a series of flexible electrode materials with nickel foam as a partly self-sacrificial template by an in situ growth solvent thermal method.

Constructing three-dimensional (3D) structural composite lithium metal anode by molten-infusion strategy is an effective strategy to address the severe problems of Li dendritic growth and huge volume changes. However, various challenges, including uncontrollable Li loading, dense inner structure, and low Li utilization, still need to be addressed for the practical application of 3D Li anode. Herein, we propose a self-propagating method, which is realized by a synergistic effect of chemical reaction and capillarity effect on porous scaffold surface, for fabricating a flexible 3D composite Li metal anode with high Li utilization ratio and controllable low Li loading. The composite 3D anode possesses controllable low loading (8.0–24.0 mAh cm–2) and uniform grid structure, realizing a stable cycling over 600 h at a high Li metal utilization ratio over 75%. The proposed strategy for fabricating composite 3D anode could promote the practical application of Li metal batteries.

Considerable efforts are devoted to relieve the critical lithium dendritic and volume change problems in the lithium metal anode. Constructing uniform Li + distribution and lithium "host" are shown to be the most promising strategies to drive practical lithium metal anode development. Herein, a uniform Li nucleation/growth behavior in a confined nanospace is verified by constructing vertical graphene on a 3D commercial copper mesh. The difference of solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) composition and lithium growth behavior in the confined nanospace is further demonstrated by in-depth X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) and line-scan energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopic (EDS) methods. As a result, a high Columbic efficiency of 97% beyond 250 cycles at a current density of 2 mA cm −2 and a prolonged lifespan of symmetrical cell (500 cycles at 5 mA cm −2 ) can be easily achieved. More meaningfully, the solid-state lithium metal cell paired with the composite lithium anode and LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 (NCM) as the cathode also demonstrate reduced polarization and extended cycle. The present confined nanospace-derived hybrid anode can further promote the development of future all solid-state lithium metal batteries.